A Craftman's Bane
by Kalsypher
Summary: Before the Light, Ezra was a terrible student with no future. Her abilities were in her craftsmanship, something truly extraordinary, but more or less, useless with the advanced technology able to do the same. In this new age, her skills have become the only means of survival and advancement for her bane, a little thing called science. (Edited)


Air. She needed air.

Digging and squirming, she managed to free her buried legs from the sand and pushed off the sandy floor to the light of the sun as hard as she could. She knew she wouldn't make it, but she had to try. Her body was weakening, paddling turning to desperate grasping of water as she tried to claw her way to the surface.

All her life, she had doubted it was possible to cry underwater, but the world seemed more blurry as her eyes began to sting. She didn't want to die. Just as she accepted her fate, her fingers became cold as they breached the surface of the water. With a new found hope, she quickly pushed herself the few inches left, her head finally greeting the cool air. For a moment, she waded there before giving her body a break and forcing herself to float on her back.

Things had changed since she had last seen the sun. Before the darkness, she had been at home, drawing pictures of new ideas that she could create. That life was gone. All that was left was to survive, and she wasn't so sure she could do that on her own.

When she noticed land in the distance, she began swimming toward it at a calm, leisurely pace. Panicking would not help her situation. The sun had set when she reached the shore, so she stayed naked on the beach, no moon to light her way.

Falling onto her back, she looked at the stars. She had never seen so many stars, nor did she recognize them. The more she thought about it, the more uncomfortable she became. Unable to rest, she stood and followed the shore, picking up beached seaweed to help create clothing. After all, she couldn't be the only one in the world alive.

She believed to be heading east as she followed the shoreline, doing her best to figure out where she was with the stars above. The horoscope freak she used to be seemed to be very much alive as she began putting together Taurus. It was either April or May.

Everything was wrong, though. It was far too hot to be Iceland. Whatever had happened had taken her far from home. The list of questions that plagued her mind made her sit on the sand, listening to the waves. What happened? Where was everyone?

At some point, she had fallen asleep, because she woke up to the forest behind her coming to life. At least she could see. Standing, she dusted the sand grains from her body and began walking again. Her skin felt like it was on fire, a definite sunburn starting to make itself known.

With the sun lighting her way, she could see the evident destruction that had come this way. Statues lay in rubble, as though someone had deliberately destroyed them. She wouldn't have recognized them as statues had a head not been still in tact.

They weren't just heads of statues. The detail was too much, too accurate, and too flawed. These were people encased in stone. Yet, somehow, they were still stone when crushed. It didn't make sense, but those were questions for someone else to answer.

Her eyes widened when she found footprints in the sand. They stretched far apart as though they were running. She chased after them, watching as they quickly turned to a well worn path in the forest. When she found the end of the path, she was amazed to find more than one human.

A village was on a pillar bridged away, another pillar beyond it with some large hut sitting on top. The scene in front of her was strange, two men screaming as they popped bubbles with their spears. They were screaming about sorcery, though she wasn't quite sure what was so dangerous about bubbles.

A teen with green hair was laughing as another tried to calm down the men about the bubbles. Her eyes widened at the formula on his chest. She had failed enough tests to know what Einsteins formula was.

Despite wearing only seaweed, she approached the chaos, glancing skeptically at the men and their panic over bubbles. Their panics went silent as all eyes moved to her. The green haired teen"/ eyes widened as he looked her over. "Where did you come from?"

The question didn't make sense, but she answered anyway, "Iceland?"

"You can't walk from Iceland to Japan. It's ten billion percent impossible."

"I'm in Japan? No wonder it's so hot."

"Where did you wake up?" He asked,

"I was in the ocean," she replied as she rubbed her arm. "Just yesterday, actually."

He walked up to her, his nose scrunched, "That sunburn is going to hurt like hell. Stay with me. I'll explain what I can."

The green haired teen was impressive, showing up Chrome the Sorcerer at every turn. He knew the minerals Chrome threw into his bonfire that he called Rainbow Bridge. The static electricity of the sulfur ball didn't impress him, but scared the others when he revved it up with his leather cloth. Then came numbers, which didn't surprise anyone present at how much the teen knew.

The blonde girl with the group looked at Ezra for a moment, frowning, "You don't look so good."

"Thanks," she replied as she sat down, leaning against one of the poles at the base of the hut.

A cool hand touched her forehead for a moment before pulling away, "Hey, look at me."

Ezra forced her eyes open, unaware they had even shut. Ruby eyes of the Einstein guy searched here face for a moment before she closed her eyes again.

"It's just sun poisoning," he diagnosed. "You'll be fine."

"We can be poisoned by the sun?!" Someone screamed in horror.

"Here, I'm laying you down," Einstein said, his voice distant.

Had he not warned her, she would have believed someone had dropped her off a cliff. Dizzy and nauseous, she could only pray that either death or sleep took her. She certainly didn't want to be conscious anymore.

At some point, she fell asleep. Einstein woke her up a bit roughly, but apologized when he noticed how miserable it made her. "I made a salve for your burn. Let me know if I make you uncomfortable."

"I feel like I got hit by a truck," Ezra said dismally. "Thank you for this. I'll repay you somehow."

"Are you good at science?" He asked.

"No, I never have been. I was a sheep farmer." She shuddered a bit when he touched her neck but let him continue. "Can you tell me what happened?"

"Three thousand and seven hundred years ago, swallows began to petrify, turning into stone. There was a green light, and everyone on Earth turned to stone as well. As far as I know, there are only five people alive from our time. Two of the s were friends of mine, the other turned out to be a power-hungry tyrant that wants to rule the world with force and destroy any and all adults so he rule unquestioned. My goal is to revive all of humanity with the power of science."

"I'll help you in whatever way I can. I can't help with your chemicals, and I can't do math at all, at least not on paper." She looked at him with a slight smile, "I'm not an intelligent person, but I am a craftsman. If I can build a working tractor out of spare car parts, I think I can build just about anything."

"I remember reading that article. Is your name really Ezekiel?"

"No, my name is Ezra. My brother claimed the project to be his. He was a businessman, not a workman. He didn't even know what make the car was that I used to put it together."

"It was kind of obvious the cars weren't Italian. What type of wheels did you use?" He asked, amused by the lies he had noticed in the article.

"Someone was testing out 3D printed tires and agreed to provide some as long as I let anyone who asked know. When my brother claimed it, there was no way for me to tell anyone. Who would believe me?"

"I need to get under the vines."

"Do what you need to do, doc," she replied, her attention going to the dark forest ahead of her. Ignoring where his hands went, she looked over her shoulder to the serious faced teen who was clearly focused on the task at hand, not at all what he was touching. "How were we stone then not stone? I didn't even know I had turned to stone."

"I have no idea. I woke up in a cave with nitric acid dripping on me. I knew I couldn't survive in this Stone World alone, so I found my friend and put him in the cave so the acid could drop on him. He was finally revived and we found a way to make nitol. We were going to revive another friend, but we were attacked by lions. That forced our hands to wake the power hungry one." He chuckled slightly, "Its nice to have someone that can at least understand what I'm saying."

She shrugged, "Scientifically, I won't have a clue. I can probably figure it out, though."

"When someone doesn't learn something, it's because they don't want to or because they have a crappy teacher. I'll teach you, and your creations will be better than anything you could dream of in this Stone World. I'm ten billion percent sure of it."

She smiled slightly, "To keep tradition, just what do I call you? Senke? Sinks?"

"If you're asking my name, it's Senku. If you're asking about a teacher, it's Sensei."

"Senku-Sensei it is, then."

He sighed, "Whatever you say, Ezra. There. All done."

She placed her hand over the thin cloth wrapped around her chest and shoulders. It was a good way to keep the salve on her skin rather than rubbing off, but it was still strange someone her age had managed to do it. That decided it. If anyone could save the world, it would be Senku.


End file.
